How not to stonewall when somebody objects to your English usage
Jose Carillo
November 14, 2009
Dear Fellow Communicators in English,
What do you do when somebody tenaciously objects to your English usage that you’re sure is correct? Should you just stonewall until the objector gets tired and backs off?
I found myself a conscientious objector and the butt of objection last week over two separate cases of disputable English usage—the first a flawed sentence construction regularly used by a well-respected economist in her closing spiel for the TV news analysis segment of “News on Q” (“No issue is too big or too small to affect you”); and the second a serious challenge to my use of the plural determiner “those” in the headline “Inoculating ourselves against all those journalistic nonsense.” In the first case, the economist continues to intone the flawed English usage despite my critique of it in my newspaper column almost two mont hs ago, and in the second, there simply was no shrugging off the Australian objector who insisted that I should have used the singular “that” instead because “nonsense” is a singular mass noun, as in “All that jazz.”
This week’s edition of Jose Carillo’s English Forum provides separate blow-by-blow accounts of my efforts to resolve these two grammar issues—including posting in the Forum my column about the economist’s flawed English as a last resort, and asking four notable American English-grammar mavens to weigh in with their opinion on the “that/those” impasse. As usual, of course, the Forum’s regular sections feature several provo cative and very interesting articles for your reading enjoyment.
THIS WEEK IN THE FORUM (November 14-20, 2009): · My Media English Watch: A Glaring Grammar Error Persists on “News on Q” (No faulty English usage on TV is too small not to be corrected publicly) · You Asked Me This Question: Should We Use the Verb “Refused” Instead in “I Was Denied a US Visa”? (Figure out first who’s the doer and receiver of the action) · How Good is Your English?: For TOEFL Reading Comprehension Test, Better Bone Up on Americana (This way, you won’t feel like a Martian when taking it) · Essays by Jose Carillo: Figuring Out the Number of Ways of Skinning a Cat (What to do if it isn’t clear whether the subject is singular or plural) · News and Commentary: Gains in English Teaching, Learning of Students in the Philippines Cited (Five-year review shows continuous improvement) · Readings About Language: Four English Grammar Mavens Help Resolve a Disputed Usage (An instructive lesson in language and conflict resolution) · Special Forum on Education: Discusssions Have Shifted Focus to Virtues and Perils of Taglish (Signs of life in the language area after a long hiatus) · Advice and Dissent: In the US , are Too Many Students Going to College? (The American dilemma on this perhaps should be food for thought for us as well) · Time Out from Grammar: Physicist Wows, Then Humiliates Science Community with Fool’s Gold (When the screening criteria for inventions get lax, expect bedlam) · Lounge: Much Grammar Ado About a Cat Surrounded by Iridescent Flowers (But lost in punctuation!)
See you at the Forum!
Joe Carillo We e-mail this free update to regular readers of Jose Carillo’s English Forum. If you’re on our mailing list by mistake or don’t want to continue receiving this update, simply e-mail a note to us with the word “Unsubscribe.” Thank you. Where do you want to go today?
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